Facebook is poised to reach a milestone of 500 million users. Why is this important for those of us looking to maximize our businesses using social networking. Well, in the first place it just shows that social networking is still alive and well. Secondly, it demonstrates that people are still enamored by the ability to communicate on the web with their friends etc.

Finally, it shows how fast an application like Facebook can grow. Just a few weeks ago we were looking at 400 million Facebook users and now, just a few weeks later, 1/2 a billion people are now, at one time or another, using Facebook.

For a while now I’ve been talking about the massive exposure one gets when they integrate three of these social networking tools; Twitter (approx. 75 million users), YouTube (approx. 80 million users and over 1 billion video views) and WordPress (approx. 1,906,964 blogs on wordpress.com and 0.8% of ALL the sites in the world are powered by WordPress). I picked these apps because they are free, easy to use and are growing along with the Facebooks geometrically. They will be here for the long run which means that if you use them correctly, learn the ins and outs, they will return the favor in spades.

Imagine the power if you can combine just these three apps, the Internet Trifecta,  when you’re trying to get more visibility for your business. That is not to say that Facebook is not a great tool for your business as well but I have always found that Facebook is a bit more or a friend to friend modality rather than a true business tool. I would suggest that a good starting point for any new business, online or offline, should begin with the Trifecta. Than you can always add the other social networks to your marketing mix.

Before you attempt this marketing approach you really need to take a step back and create a marketing plan. One of the worst things you can do is to jump in with two feet, hoping for the best and then, when things fail, blame the system. You need to think a bit about what you are trying to promote, what kind of video you will need to present this product (etc.) and then design a blog with an appropriate theme to begin branding that product. Promoting your videos and blog can then be easily accomplished using a wide variety of products, techniques and tricks.

Another suggestion is to start slowly. A mistake made by many entrepreneurs is that they create multiple videos, blogs and websites thinking that if one blog will be successful, than 100 will just be that much more successful. An exaggeration but the point is learn as much as possible about the creation, integration, SEO, marketing etc. of one integrated blog for one niche. Get it running successfully and then just do it all over again in another niche.

By combining the three great, free apps you can reach a whole bunch of people in a very predictable and affordable way. You can use not only the written word but, for those people who are more visual in nature, video as well. There are untold avenues to explore so don’t wait. Get going today.

In a future post, I want to talk a bit more about how ‘brick and mortar’ businesses can use the Trifecta to create a successful online business and to increase the branding of their online business.